There are many reasons why you might want to learn how to turn off your Bluetooth in a Tesla. For instance, if you are in the car and there are many others in the car with you, it might be a good policy to ensure that your phone does not ring and disrupt the speakers. Deactivating the Bluetooth would be necessary so that your phone does not connect to your Tesla. Another reason could be that you need to quickly ensure that your car does not turn on when your phone gets within range. I read about a new customer that had his cell phone in his home, close to his Tesla, and the phone connected to the Tesla turning it on and warmed the car to the temperature to 72°. One way of ensuring that this does not happen is to turn off the Bluetooth or to change the security settings in the Tesla.
How to turn off Bluetooth in Tesla. To turn off Bluetooth in Tesla you have to click on the Bluetooth symbol that is in the top right-hand corner of your Tesla screen. A window will pop open with Bluetooth settings and you’ll notice that there’s a button at the bottom right-hand side of this window that says ‘disconnect’. Press disconnect and Bluetooth will be disconnected from your Tesla and you will not have to worry about your phone connecting.
How do I turn on Bluetooth in my Tesla?
Learning how to connect Bluetooth in your Tesla is important because this is one way of getting your phone to work and also to ensure that you have Wi-Fi access that is usually accessible only by using your cell phone along with your Tesla.
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Here are the steps for activating Bluetooth:
- When you’re viewing the Tesla screen, you’ll notice that there’s a Bluetooth icon at the top right-hand corner. Press it so that you will go to the settings for Bluetooth.
- Once you are within the Bluetooth screen, you might see a list of phones that are already connected to your Tesla. Don’t let that list scare you. It is entirely normal.
- Now what you need to do is to find your phone in the list of phones on that menu. It’ll probably be the brand of your phone or it might have your name in front of it if you have already programmed your phone previously.
- Click on your phone in the list of phones.
- If your phone is not already connected, you will see a blue button appear that says Connect
- Make sure that your Bluetooth is turned on on your phone. You can usually find the Bluetooth option within the settings for your cell phone.
- Now your Tesla will connect to your phone.
- If you are connecting your phone because you would like to listen to music from your phone, such as saved files from Spotify, click the media button on the screen.
If you need to add your phone to the list of phones on your Bluetooth menu, here are the steps to follow:
- Click on the Bluetooth icon at the top right-hand part of the screen to get to the Bluetooth menu.
- Now click on Search so that the Bluetooth function will try to find your phone.
- You should see your phone’s name appear. Press this name.
- You will notice that a numeric code appears such as 523321.
- Now go to your phone and you’ll notice that there’s a button called ‘pair’ that had appeared. Press on ‘pair’ to allow the Tesla to connect to your phone. Just make sure that the code that is appearing on your phone it’s the same one that had appeared on your Tesla screen.
- Now go back to your Tesla screen and you notice that your phone is connected and that you have the ability to turn on the contacts and recent calls. You can also access the media files on your phone by pressing the media button.
How do I reset my Tesla Bluetooth?
One method for resetting your Tesla Bluetooth is to perform a soft reboot
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Soft Reboot
If you are having problems getting your phone to connect via Bluetooth in your Tesla even though you have done so perfectly in the past, there is a way to quickly reset it using the touchscreen in Tesla:
- Make sure that you drive to a safe location and then put your Tesla in park.
- Take out any USB devices that are currently connected to your Tesla which includes anything related to music or dash-mounted cameras.
- On your touchscreen, press scroll wheel buttons at the same time for about 10 seconds. The screen should go black.
- Now what you need to do is to power up your screen and your Bluetooth settings should be reset.
- Finally, the last step for resetting your Bluetooth settings on Tesla is to turn on your phone see if it will reconnect to your Prius.
If your phone is not connecting using this soft reboot, it’s now time to try a hard reboot on your Tesla.
Hard Reboot – for Tesla Bluetooth:
- Make sure that you are parked in a safe location and that you had placed your Tesla in park.
- It is always best to remove all USB devices so that equipment is not interacting with Tesla while you are performing the hard reboot.
- The next step is to apply the brakes.
- Press in the scroll buttons until your screen turns off.
- You now have performed the hard reboot and it’s time to try to reconnect your phone via Bluetooth.
Common Bluetooth Tesla Connection Issues
I went online and I searched for common issues with the Bluetooth connection on a Tesla. There are few situations that seem to pop up quite readily and I will explain them in detail.
The wrong phone is connecting to Bluetooth if two phones are close to the Tesla
This problem occurs since the first phone that connects via Bluetooth is the first one that the Tesla Bluetooth notices. People feel that if they had their phone registered on the Bluetooth menu as the preferred Bluetooth device that that phone will be the one that connects to their Tesla. This is not so in many cases. It is as if the preferred setting is just there to register your phone as the driver’s phone.
Even though Tesla states that it’s most likely going to connect to the preferred phone, its accuracy level is still in question. The best approach is to turn off the phone that you do not wish to connect to the Tesla so that only your preferred phone will be picked up by Bluetooth.
Another Bluetooth Problem is that Phone Audio will go to Tesla even before Driver is in the Car
Another situation was quite bizarre regarding the Bluetooth operation of the Tesla, Some people were reporting that their cell phone was connecting to the audio in the Tesla even before they were inside the vehicle which is very disruptive if someone is having a conversation outside of the Tesla.
I found a twit on Twitter explaining this very situation suggesting that Tesla use a function that will determine if the driver is in the driver’s seat before the system attempts to pair with a phone. Musk read it on Twitter, and he replied that it sounded as if it would be a great upgrade to make.
Around August 2020 an update was released that made a Bluetooth Improvement that was welcomed by Tesla owners. It was incorporated into the firmware 2020.8.1. It instructed the Bluetooth function only to connect to a paired phone once the driver was in the driver’s seat and all of the doors in the Tesla were closed.
However, I had noticed that there were problems that were occurring for certain owners once they had initiated the upgrade to the firmware. Some customers reported that they were having problems connecting their iPhone or an Android device. I’m assuming that these problems have been rectified since they seem to appear less in the forums.
What to do when Tesla will not forget a Bluetooth device
Another problem that people are having that’s a very common case that they cannot delete a cell phone from the list of cell phones for Bluetooth connection. Many people had made suggestions on how to reboot doing a soft or hard reboot that did not seem to correct the problem.
Finally, I found a post that stated that someone had searched in the manual and he was able to do the following in order to delete his wife’s older cell phone from the list of cell phones. What you should try is to press the two scroll buttons on the steering wheel and hold them in for 5 to 10 seconds. This will reset the screen for you and you should then be able to remove any Bluetooth device that is listed.
